I. Field of the Inivention
This invention relates to a multifunction toilet, and, more particularly, this invention relates to a standard flush toilet having auxiliary features including an odor removal exhaust fan system and a personal cleansing water spray system.
II. State of the Art
There are many ways in which unpleasant or obnoxious toilet odors are dealt with. Most commonly, in both domestic and commercial or public practice, a room exhaust fan is provided, usually in conjunction with a wall mounted switch. In public or business establishments, deodorants are commonly used to primarily mask the undesirable odor. In some systems, air is withdrawn from the toilet bowl and passed through a filter such as a charcoal filter and returned to the room with or without additional deodorizing, such a system being shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,594,826.
More effective odor control systems remove gas from the toilet bowl and exhaust the gas to the sewer system downstream of the water trap siphon seal in the toilet bowl. This normally requires the use of at least one valve in the exhaust conduit which, primarily for economy, is supplied as a solenoid operated on-off valve in a relatively small air pipe such as valve 36 shown in FIG. 6 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,534,415 or the solenoid operated flapper valve 74 shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,120,006. A more expensive and larger spring loaded piston type solenoid valve is shown at 48, 50 and 52 in U.S. Pat. No. 4,933,996 in which the fan housing is located in the water tank with the exhaust flow and electrical connection going through the exhaust conduit 40 and with an additional flapper-type check valve 38 being part of the blower assembly 32 located in the water tank between the fan and the exhaust conduit 40 as seen in FIG. 3.
One of the primary purposes of the valve in the exhaust conduit is to prevent backflow of sewer gases into the toilet. Some exhaust systems completely ignore this problem by failing to supply a valve as for example as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,079,782, 4,993,083 and 3,805,304. Other systems rely on a purely mechanical type of check valve having no water trap such as the ball type check valve 32 in U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,131 or the spring loaded valve 24 shown in FIG. 5 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,534,415 or the flexible valve structure 107, 110 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,103,370.
Some systems utilize a manually operated damper valve as the damper valve 41 in the system shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,558,473 which employs a single fan for alternately conveying odor exhaust gas and for supplying drying air after the user has employed a personal water rinse.
There are also a wide variety of toilets which are equipped with a nozzle pipe in the toilet bowl to provide a water spray for bathing or cleansing the user's genitals, most of which also supply a warm drying air after the water spray. Some of these bidet type accessories use a fixed or stationary nozzle pipe extending into the toilet bowl such as a system shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,616,368 and 3,154,793. These stationary nozzle pipe systems present sanitary cleaning and corrosion problems.
More of the bidet type accessory systems employ a nozzle pipe which is extended into and retracted from the toilet bowl, some of which are driven by water pressure and the majority of which are driven by an electric motor. Most of the systems provide a tank for heating the nozzle water, and some of the systems provide an optional choice between a gentle spray and a higher pressure spray. Multiposition systems are available as well as systems that employ the use of two nozzle pipes. The nozzle pipe motor and the water valve are typically actuated by a manual user switch or a switch which is closed when the user is seated on the toilet seat. Examples of these washing spray and drying air accessories are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,050,249, 5,203,037, 4,551,868, 4,704,748, 4,558,473, 4,628,548, 4,304,016, 4,841,583, 4,995,326, 3,594,826, 5,208,922 and 4,987,617.